


Legacy

by greygerbil



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: AU: Mage Boon Helped Mages In Ferelden, AU: Mages Allying With Inquisition Strengthens Their Position, F/M, Sword & Shield Warrior Inquisitor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-09
Updated: 2019-09-09
Packaged: 2020-10-13 03:37:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20575823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greygerbil/pseuds/greygerbil
Summary: Evelyn Trevelyan did not realise how much of an impact her actions had on Solas' regard for her.





	Legacy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sumi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sumi/gifts).

“Is this an interesting place to you?”

Evelyn fell down next to Solas in the grass. Above them, the leaves were already painted in the shades of flames, yellow and red and orange. When she had first come here, it had been at the beginning of a merciless, stifling summer. She remembered trekking in the sweltering heat with Solas, Cassandra, and Varric in tow, dressed in whatever pieces of scuffed leather and dented metal they had been able to scrounge from the fallen soldiers whose corpses had been scattered around the burned remains of the Temple of Sacred Ashes. Now they wore armour she had commissioned, crafted in the forge of her fortress and outfitted with powerful runes.

Solas lifted his gaze at her and smiled. “Why do you ask?”

“Well, everyone complains when I take them to the Hinterlands,” Evelyn said with a wry grin. “But you see things none of them do when you sleep while we rest.”

“Maybe you could answer the question for yourself. You are not a dwarf, you have a connection to the Fade as well. You could find it if you tried.” He gave a brief glance at her hand. “You of all people.”

Chuckling, Evelyn looked down at her hand, too. He meant the mark, but what she saw were the deep calluses dug into it by all the years of clutching the grip of her shield. She had always been a warrior, her greatest value in her broad shoulders and immovable feet and the reckless courage that kept her at the front of every battle even if it might have been wiser to run.

“I am as Fade-blind as a rock, Solas, you know this, and not bright enough to figure this stuff out. The Fade isn’t open to just any old soldier.” She halted. “Well, except when I dream, I guess, but I don’t really ever see anything the way you do. It’s usually of almost missing the lesson the master at arms put on for my parents to show off my skills – and when I eventually turn up I realise I don’t have my breeches on.”

She grinned as he gave her an exasperated but slightly amused glance of disapproval. It was not the first time they’d had a conversation like this and Evelyn thought that he almost seemed to enjoy her customary denial at this point, knowing by now it was not born of disinterest in his otherworldly pursuits.

“I do like to hear of what you see there, though,” Evelyn reminded him.

Sola laid aside a smooth stone he had rolled between his fingers. The light from the lanterns of the Inquisition camp, which laid a few feet behind their backs, cast him in a soft light. Even if he would have been truly cross with Evelyn for her irreverent answer, she knew that in the end, he could never resist talking of the things he saw when he closed his eyes.

“Ferelden is a country with a long and varied history. Even the places that to humans are just meadowland and woods now have their tales,” Solas said, cocking his head as if listening to some far-off voice.” I have seen Tyrdda fight here, or perhaps just the memories of people who had, or who thought they did. It’s hard to tell, but the loyalty and awe she inspired hangs in the air. It makes this land very invigorating to walk on, in truth.” He looked back at the tents. “Even if Varric and Dorian won’t stop complaining about stones getting into their shoes.”

Evelyn threw her head back and laughed. However, a thought came to her, then. She straightened a little where she sat.

“If you’ve seen Tyrdda Bright-Axe fight, did you know before we did that she was a mage?”

Solas nodded his head as Evelyn frowned at him.

“Why didn’t you tell us?”

“It wouldn’t have mattered. Who would have believed the dreams of some wandering apostate? You, maybe, a few of our companions, but not many others.” Solas smiled. “You are the one who sent out people to find her staff, which gave weight to the argument. It’s actions in the presence that matter, in the end, not the images of the past, even if they can and should inform us.”

He rose to his feet, gesturing at her. Evelyn stood, unsure what he meant to show her, but curious all the same. As he led them away from the camp, Evelyn heard her own footsteps as heavy thuds, legs stiff after the long day of walking and climbing, whereas Solas barely seemed to rustle the high grass as he moved. It was easy to feel clumsy next to an elf, especially as she was also almost a head taller, but Evelyn could admire his graceful steps without feeling like she had to replicate them. No one had ever looked dainty in fifty pounds of steel armour, anyway, and even the lighter leather set she wore now to sleep was bulky enough, but both were necessary. She did wonder at times, though, what Solas made of her looks. She was rather hoping for opposites attracting, in truth.

Solas walked alongside the shallow bank of the lake to the edge of the cliffside. Looking down, Evelyn found the wide plains which, during their first visit, had been the main battleground between mages and Templars. They were quiet now. In the moonlight, she saw that some of the burned shells of houses were already being reclaimed by leaves and vines. She could make out the shape of a shadowy figure slowly leading a donkey along the unpaved road.

“The Hinterlands are peaceful now, but they may not remain so. Not many agreed with your decision to free the mages, though your protection keeps them safe for now. Can you live with the idea that this piece of earth will swallow more blood because of what you did?” Solas asked.

“Leaving the mages in captivity hasn’t kept the earth here from getting drenched in it, has it?” Evelyn asked, crossing her arms over her chest. “But the way I see it, people here won’t be starting any wars soon. These are peasants and merchants, not warriors – not most of them. They will want to lick their wounds and that forces them to give pause, even if they want to chase the mages out. Of course, the mages need to behave, too. They can’t go around trying to wrench control from those who already have so little and expect people not to fight for their lives.” With a sigh, she glanced at him. “I can’t control them. If they go at each other’s throats again, I suppose they must. But I have hope that perhaps it can be different. Josephine tells me some mages even moved into Redcliffe and it doesn’t seem to have exploded yet. In Denerim, Queen Anora greeted a delegation of them in the palace, even.” She smiled briefly. “The boon the Warden asked for the mages paved the way for their freedom in Ferelden. I have simply done my part.”

Solas gave her a sideways glance.

“This has moved your mind a great deal.”

Evelyn raised a brow at him. “Well, obviously. Don’t make it sound like I _never_ think anything through before I do it.”

“I don’t. You do,” Solas pointed out. “You always say you are only a soldier. You are not. No simple soldier only used to following orders would have taken such a chance on the behalf of people whose plight they do not share – even the Warden was herself a mage, she did not take up that fight selflessly. It is a burden you have agreed to carry when there were many easier ways. You may be called the bringer of a new age of peace – or the reason war broke out across Ferelden, Orlais, and the Free Marches.”

“I’ll probably be dead if it ever gets that far, so I guess the names they call me can’t bother me, then,” Evelyn said with a shrug. “Locking up mages hasn’t done the trick and in the end, they’re just people. There’s good ones, there’s bad ones, but we have always dealt with that out in the world. I can only do what I think is right, whatever they’ll write about me in a hundred years.”

Solas gave her a slow nod.

“I suppose that’s all any of us can do, is it not? Our legacies are not for us to decide. One must only hope time doesn’t run out before one can correct the worst mistakes.”

His gaze went far away, as if he was not seeing the battlefield beneath them at all now, and a sadness had settled in his voice. Evelyn had no idea what it was about, but the true pain she heard moved her so much she turned to him, taking him by the shoulder.

“Solas, are you alright?”

He visibly shook himself awake.

“Yes. Just – memories. There’s always regret in places where so many lives ended prematurely. Chances not taken, paths left untraveled. Better endings...”

His gaze strayed to her hand and then to her face. There was a breath of still silence between them, hardly more time than it took to blink, and then he pushed himself up on his toes to kiss her.

Had Evelyn not thought about this moment a little too often, perhaps she would have frozen in place. As it was, her body moved on its own accord before her mind had caught up. She cradled the back of his head and pulled him in by the shoulder, bowing down a little so he did not have to crane his neck. His hands laid tightly on her waist as he kissed her with purpose and need, which made it feel as if this was not the first time the to do so idea had come to him, either.

When they parted, Solas looked almost surprised. Evelyn had to laugh.

“I hope _you’re_ not feeling regret now.”

That thin, mirthful smile she found so charming returned.

“I have enough reasons, as everyone does. However, I wonder if I can forgive myself for succumbing to this temptation. You are an altogether irresistible person.”

“And you are a sweet-talker,” Evelyn said.

She glanced out across the lake, where something rustled in the dark thickets on the other side, and put her arm around his shoulders to push him away gently and make sure she stood closer to the water than him. Perhaps he was right and she had grown into more than a soldier, but she was still the thing she liked to see most between danger and those she cared about.

“Let’s head back. The wolves will be hungry with so much game slain by the fighters earlier this year.”

“One must be wary of them, yes,” Solas murmured and though he hesitated briefly, he leaned into her, then, as she started to pick their way back across the meadow, his hand gently grasping hers hanging over his shoulder and squeezing it.


End file.
